Business and comparable communications have become extremely complex. Variables on a page include color, text, image and graphics. Production choices include traditional offset, digital high-speed print, continuous-forms print and cut-sheet print. Delivery options include HTML, e-mail, fax and screen. Further complicating the production process is the variety of industry formats, including EPS, PDF, TIFF, JPEG, XML PostScript® and PCL.
IPDS™ (Intelligent Printer Data Stream™) was developed by IBM® as a host-to-printer data stream or language for controlling and managing all-points-addressable printers to allow the presentation of pages containing a wide range of different data types. Without providing details, IPDS contains the information necessary to identify, monitor and control the functions of certain printers which are used in high end work-group and mainframe environments (as well as other environments). The information includes the characteristics of the printer, its resolution, its available resources and its memory, among others. An IPDS compatible printer may be driven at the highest possible speed and with the greatest use of its functions by allowing the output of different, independent source data to be merged at print time, resulting in an integrated, mixed-data printed page.
However, once an IPDS job has been submitted by a host to a printer and the IPDS session has been opened, the IPDS session “owns” the printer and expects that there are no other jobs printing. Consequently, when a non-IPDS print job is sent to the printer, it must wait until the IPDS host relinquishes the printer before rasterizing (or ripping) of the non-IPDS data can even begin. If printing begins after some of the data has been ripped (“concurrent rip and print”) but the printer prints faster than ripped data is available, the printer must pause. However, pausing may damage certain printers, such as continuous forms printers. Therefore, it is preferable to fully rip the data before beginning to print. However, because ripping a large print job may take a long time, the printer may remain idle for that period until ripping is complete which is expensive in both time and resources.
Consequently, a more efficient use of printer resources remains desirable.